TANNENBERG CAMPAIGN

 

In the following several posts I'll be tracking the progress of my solo playtest of a 1914 Tannenberg miniatures campaign.

One of the nice things of gaming solo is that you can dive as deeply as you like into your campaign, making it as multi-faceted as you wish. This is what is what I plan to do here. This is purely for the fun of it, but I hope it will make for some entertaining reading, too.

This campaign will be run at three levels: tactical, operational, and strategic. Most campaigns are run at only one level, but think of this like a movie: where the scenes zoom in and out, from the panoramic down to focusing in on the perennial 'squad of guys' (and can you think of a war movie that didn't feature a single squad of guys?).

Let's examine these three levels, from the top down:

• Strategic. This features a hex map of East Prussia in 1914, working at about 20km per hex. The 1st and 2nd Russian Armies are facing off against the German 8th Army. Rules will be somewhat simplified: movement, combat, supply. And no, I don't intend on fighting every combat in the campaign on the tabletop! Instead, I'll be zeroing in on a single unit, and only gaming out those actions which involve it (more on this below). For the rest, I'll be using what I call my 'Forgotten Battles' rule, resolving those other battles with a set of simplified die rolls. I'll be using a spreadsheet to track the results.

• Operational. This is where the miniatures come in. I've written a homebrew set of operational WWI rules which I tentatively call 'Nach Paris!' Basic units are regiments in 6mm and the area covered is quite large -- about 16km from side-to-side. Movement is boxed based at 2km per box, which allows for faster play.

• Tactical. This is where the 'squad of guys' comes in. I'll track the progress of a single (randomly selected) platoon of c. 60 German Reservists -- members of 1st Company of 1st Battalion, 128th Grenadier Regiment, which is attached to 36th Division of XVII Active Corps. If I wanted to I could game out their activities using rules like a mash-up of Xenos Rampant, or The Men Who Would Be Kings, but this would really slow things down. Instead, I'll be using a simple set of homebrew rules I call 'Falling Leaves' -- linked to the operational level rules mentioned above -- and track the fates of the individual Reservists using a spreadsheet. Figs are in 20mm.

So, that's the outline of the campaign. The Russians are planning on driving the Germans out of East Prussia, seizing Konigsberg to boot. The outnumbered Germans intend, of course, to hold them back.

But we'll begin by providing some background information on our 'focus unit'... our 'perennial squad of guys'. 

The 1910 Graduating Class of the Marienwerder Gymnasium Oberschul

In order to generate our 'squad', I needed to have some fun source material. For this, I used a graduating secondary school class of 64 males. I used Gemini AI to generate a randon selection of German surnames. (I had at first thought of digging out my old High School yearbook and using the names of the senior classmen found there.😉)

Our lads happen to be from the town of Marienwerder, East Prussia, where they attended the Gymnasium Oberschul. Upon reaching their 17th birthdays -- four years before the outbreak of war -- they, like every other 17 year old German male, had their names entered into the First Ban of the Landsturm -- Landsturm meaning Land Force, and Ban meaning a list (as in wedding bans). So, how would the powers that be easily find you in order to put your name on that list? Because you're in school, of course! (And why else arrange students by age group?) 

Marienwerder, East Prussia

Marienwerder Gymnasium Oberschul

The students of the class of 1910, in their student uniforms.

In in order to understand what our guys are going through, it'll useful here to give a bit of a description of how the German Reservist system worked.

Upon reaching the age of 20, those on the above list would be liable to be conscripted into the army: two years for infantry, three for artillery and cavalry. The number conscripted would depend on the military budget for the current year, but on average it was about 50%. There were exemptions for things like attending university (of course).

At the age 22 to 24, and having completed their full-time active service, they would become Reservists. This meant one night a week at the local armoury (to keep their skills up), as well as a month of maneuvers in the summer. They would continue to be Reservists from the ages of 25 to 27, but would be transfered to a Reserve unit. From the ages of 28 to 39 they would serve in a Landwehr unit, and from the ages of 40 to 45 in a Landsturm unit. This latter was pretty much a home guard, 'Dad's Army' type force -- good for being traffic cops, truant officers, etc., etc.

So, you can see that the concept of being 'in the Reserves' was very different in Germany than in the English-speaking world. The Reserves were not second-rate units. Reservists, in fact, constituted the great majority of those under arms at mobilization.

I recreated a spreadsheet to track all of this, and to radomly select who is conscripted, who went to university, etc., etc. Below is a screenshot showing the top left-hand corner of the sheet. You can see that the first eight names of the graduated class are listed, but there are in fact a total 64 of them on the sheet.

You can also see how they would progess through the military system as they get older (given a normal time of peace). Since our lads were born in 1893 and graduated in 1910, those fortunate enough to have been conscripted just happen to be aged 21 in 1914, and are thus currently assigned to a unit of the regular, active army. If one of them happened to have a  conscripted older brother -- say, two years older -- he would have finished his formal military training by now and would have become a Reservist, and would be assigned to flesh out his Active unit upon mobilization. If that brother were, say, five years older, he too would be Reservist, but would be assigned to the associated Reserve unit. And if it happened to be an uncle, say, 12 year older, he would be assigned to the associated Landwehr unit. 

Presumably they would all be from the same school in the same Army Corps district, and all assigned to the same battalion -- or company even -- in the same Active Regiment, as well as it's associated Reserve and Landwehr units. So, you can see that military service in Imperial Germany was very much a family affair.

Once the Reservist had reached the age of 40, his name would entered on the Second Ban of the Landsturm, and he would be eligible to serve in the Landsturm (homeguard) until the age 45.

It is worthwhile noting that in 1910 Germany life expectancy was an average of 47 years! The German military was very efficient in it's utilization of the available manpower.

Detail from my spreadsheet 'Reservist: Bans of the Landsturm'

Having run the 64 names from our class through the randomizer on my spreadsheet, I came up with following results:

• Exempted (University)        4
• Conscripted (Infantry)         20
• Conscripted (Artillery)         7
• Conscripted (Cavalry)         3
• Not Selected                       30

I'm only following those in the Infantry. Their names appear below, as members in the 1st Battalion, 128th Grenadier Regiment, 36th Active Division, XVII Active Corps. 

Am I actually going to track how much they are being paid under 'Paybook'? No. But their fates would typically be listed under that heading so that the Regimental Adjutants would know to stop paying them if they were KIA.

A list of all the Reservists from the 1910 class assigned to 128.Grenadier Regt.

By the way: those 30 guys who are listed as being 'Not Selected' don't get away scot-free! That simply means they weren't conscripted when they turned 20 in 1913. They are still listed in the First Ban of the Landsturm, and are thus eligible to be being drafted as Ersatz (replacement troops) in 1914 or later. But too late for this campaign.

Also by the way: for those who have read All Quiet on the Western Front, note that protagonist Paul Bäumer is a student at the start of the novel. Presumably he is on the list, but not yet aged 20 and thus not yet facing the possibility of conscription. He is pushed (by his teacher) to volunteer along with the rest of his class, rather than wait for his time to be called up. The Germans raised something like an additional 13 divisions in this way.

Their fearless Leader: Oberleutnant von Trompe

In order to determine the unit that they are attached to, I consulted the list below.

Germany was divided into 25 Army Corps areas, which were each in turn subdivided into two divisional, four brigade, and eight regimental areas. Each of these generally had a Active and a Reserve unit, as well as Landwehr units. XVII Army Corp's principal garrison towns were Danzig, Graudenz, Thorn, and Marienwerder. The 128th Grenadier Regiment is based in Marienwerder, and so it is our former students' Active unit. See the list for details. 

128.Grenadier Regt. is a part of XVII Corps, from Marienwerder.

Once mobilization was declared, the Reservists would have received a telegraph telling them to report to their regimental depots within 24 hours. There they would have been issued their kit and marching orders.

Not so our 20 brave Grenadiers, however, who are already with their Active unit and ready to go! They would have boarded a troop train at Marienwerder and been sent to their pre-arranged assembly point at Lotzen, some 200 km to the east.

Opening set-up: Our brave Reservists' XVII Corps is c. 20km east of the Masurian Lakes. 

From there, it's about a 20 km march by road further east, to await the invading Russians ...

Next time: Baptism of Fire at Lotzen.